A financial reporting system for a business is generally composed of different applications. In the case of a bank, these applications may include a general ledger application and a loan-processing application. These applications generate financial statements that are in accordance with relevant generally accepted accounting principals (GAAP). GAAP refers to the set of rules, convention, standards, and procedures for reporting financial information. US GAAP, for example, are established by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). Differences generally exist between the GAAP of different countries. In view of the multinational environment in which many businesses operate, it would be desirable to provide a financial reporting system and method that accommodates differences between the GAAP of different countries.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, a management system includes a computer-implemented routine for accessing journal entries stored in a computer-readable memory and a computer-implemented journal entry generating routine for automatically generating journal entries for a first set-of-books and for a second set-of-books based on the accessed journal entries. The journal entries for the first set-of-books are in accordance with a first reporting standard and the journal entries for the second set-of-books are in accordance with a second, different reporting standard.
The management system and method described herein provides a single workflow that may be applied to converting a book of original entries in one accounting system to another reporting book in a different accounting system. The system and method allow a user, for example, to set up the accounting method of various items according to any country's GAAP. By way of example, the management system and method described herein provide an automated conversion engine for loan transactions. The conversion engine processes transactions from a lending application and applies a series of rules that automatically generates journal entries that accommodate the differences between US GAAP and Japanese (JP) GAAP. For example, under US GAAP, non-refundable fees associated with a term loan agreement are deferred and amortized over the life of the loan. Under JP GAAP, such fees are treated as immediate income. When a transaction for an up-front fee payment is entered into a commercial lending application for US GAAP, the commercial lending application generates the entries to defer the fee and amortize it. When the conversion engine of the present invention detects these transactions, it reverses the deferral and treats the fee as income for JP GAAP. The conversion engine also reverses any subsequent amortization because the fee has already been recognized.
The conversion engine is configured to perform similar conversions based on other differences between the US and JP GAAP.
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of the specification, illustrate various features of the present invention and, together with the general description given above and the detailed description provided below, serve to explain the principles of the invention.